Wounded
by Marauder-In-Disguise
Summary: "They hurt I know. At the time and for a long while after. But you can't let them win." There a couple of things that Dave thinks Emily needs to see...


**A/N – My first ever Rossi/Prentiss, which is strange because I guess if I had to choose a 'ship, I'd pick them…anyways, I'm super nervous about this because it's the closest I've ever come to writing the naughty stuff and although I don't go there, I skirt dangerously close to the edge (for me, anyway) **

**Disclaimer – Not mine. Sorry anyone who might have been planning on robbing me ;)**

He'd never intended for them to end up like this. When he'd invited her over for a friendly catch up dinner, Dave never imagined the heartfelt route that too much Italian wine would take them down. Not that he hadn't spent a long time fantasising about, and pining for, Emily Prentiss. He'd suspected that he loved her for a while, a slow burning kind of love that he thought might have begun the day she turned up in Indiana to help him out on the Galen case, but might have started before then because he was a shallow bastard and she was really very beautiful. Whichever way he looked at it, all it took was her death to confirm what he was really feeling. He found himself mourning for her like he had mourned for Emma – both before and after she had died - and once he realised that fact he made a promise that he wasn't going to lie to himself about it. He'd tried to hide from his feelings a couple of times too often – hell, he'd joined the Marines to get away from them once upon a time – and he was getting to old to do it now.

Emily was just another heartbreak to add to his own damn personal Mardi Gras of heartbreak. He was David Rossi; that was just how things tended to work out for him.

But then Emily had come back and as much as he acted as though he had known all along, playing his part perfectly so that Aaron wouldn't have to feel anymore guilty than he already did, really he was just as surprised as the rest of them to have her back, live and kicking. It was a second coming, a second chance in a life that rarely seemed to be granted such luxuries, and he swore to himself that he would do things right by her and by himself. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe the time had come for things to finally work themselves out, for something to go his way. Only one thing was certain; if he didn't try, he'd never know, and Emma had taught him that too – you tended to regret the things you didn't do rather than the things you did.

This is why he had invited Emily for dinner, strictly as friends. They had to get re-acquainted before he tentatively made his move to see if they could take their relationship further. There was only one flaw in his plan, and that was that he hadn't counted on Emily feeling exactly the same way about him as he had come to see he felt about her, and fuelled by the heady red wine and a gentle steering of the conversation in the right direction, it wasn't long before they were sat on his couch making out like a couple of teenagers. He could tell from the way she eagerly returned his kisses and mimicked the trailing of his hands over her back that they both wanted to take things a step further, and so his fingers moved gently to the buttons of her blouse. Something in her kiss faltered then and, despite all of the signals that he knew he hadn't misread, she pulled away.

"What's wrong?" he murmured, catching her under the chin and lifting her bowed head. Her eyes glistened damply as she reached up and took his hand between her own. She kissed his fingers, and he waited patiently for her to answer him; tears were not something that he was used to from Emily Prentiss and he knew that they were not shed lightly, even after everything she had been through. A diplomat's daughter through and through.

"It still looks disgusting," she said eventually, whispering her admission as though she thought herself vain and was ashamed, "The scar. I haven't let anyone see it since-"

"It's alright," he cut her off, disappointment and empathy vying for prowess in his mind, "We don't have to, Emily."

"I want to!" she exclaimed, leaning in for another breathless kiss as though to prove her point, "It's just – well –"

Shushing her with a gentle finger on her full red lips, an idea began to formulate in his mind and Dave cocked a grin.

"Can I show you something?"

"Yes," she said curiously, watching keenly as he stretched the fingers of his left hand outwards to highlight a half inch long scar, so old that it was white, nestled in the skin between his thumb and his forefinger.

"I got this the first time my mama decided I was old enough to handle a knife," he said fondly, taking one of Emily's fingers and tracing it over the mark, "I only had to chop some spinach for her. I was so excited. It bled like it was never going to stop. It was a while before she let me back in the kitchen."

Next, he reached up and pulled his left ear forwards to reveal a tiny raised scar and turned his head so that she would be able to see. Silently, exactly as he was hoping for, Emily reached up to touch it of her own accord.

"Ran into the corner of my Nonna's sideboard when I was seven. Knocked myself out."

Emily laughed but didn't say anything, obviously content to let him run whatever show he had planned. Quickly blowing out the candles, he took her hand and led her from the dining room upstairs to his bedroom. If she had resisted he would have stopped immediately but she seemed quite happy to follow him and still said nothing when he took her into the room. Dimming the lights, he helped her onto the bed and stood before her. Feeling oddly self-conscious under the weight of her gaze, but knowing just how much this could come to mean to both of them, with trembling hands he began to undo the buttons of his dress shirt. Before he was through though Emily's hands were right there, pushing the shirt off his shoulders and helping to lift the old t-shirt underneath over his head. With the heat of her hands on his skin he almost lost himself, but then she pulled away and his mind cleared enough to focus on his task.

He showed her the thin scar on his bicep from the time Max Ryan goaded an unsub into shooting at them and the bullet grazed Dave's arm. He showed her the white slash on his back from the time he was a mouthy kid and some older kids tossed him into a dumpster right on top of a pile of broken bottles. He showed her the small shrapnel wound on his abdomen from his time in the Marines, and then he showed her the Marines tattoo on his right shoulder, because that represented invisible scars better than anything else. With each new discovery, Emily dutifully ran her fingers over the smooth skin. He wondered if she could feel him shaking beneath her touch, and when she cautiously leaned in and kissed his tattoo he knew that she had, and that she had understood exactly what he trying to tell her.

But he still wasn't done.

Deliberately, knowing that the tour wasn't over, Emily stroked her hands down his chest and over his stomach, coming to rest at his belt buckle. With raised eyebrows but still no comment, she looked at him and he nodded, unable to even vocalise the simplest of instructions. She unhooked his belt and he helped her push his pants down until he could step out of them. He took off his socks at the same time, throwing them aside. He flushed slightly when he realised quite how obvious his excitement was becoming when he was clad in only his boxers but Emily didn't seem to be paying much attention to that. Her eyes were fixed on his face, waiting.

So he showed her the rest. He showed her the twin scars on his knees. One from an over-zealous game of football in his teens and the other that he had worn like a badge of honour for years; the one that he got fighting with the older boy who was bullying Emma the first time that the two of them had met. The boy was trying to take her allowance from her and she was going to hand it over before Dave had pushed him to the ground and started fighting for all he was worth. When the boy, who was much bigger than him, ended the fight by throwing Dave bodily into a metal fence and stamping on his leg, Emma had stayed with him. She stayed whilst he got stitches and then she just stayed, for years and years. And the scar was his reminder of that. The only scar he had gotten under vaguely admirable circumstances. He told Emily the whole story, because she already knew what Emma had meant to him and he wasn't going to pretend. He knew that she understood,

He finished up with by far the biggest specimen; the nine inch gash on his right leg from the time he and Jimmy and Ray had built a soapbox car in the summer before fifth grade and it crashed into a parked motorcycle while he was at the wheel. When Emily was done getting to know these scars too, Dave took her face between his hands and kissed her as gently as he knew how.

"They hurt I know," he whispered against her lips, "At the time and for a long while after. But you can't let them win. You're beautiful, Emily Prentiss. Nothing will be able to change that. Ever."

Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks in reply, and he kissed them away, his lips playing over eyelids and cheekbones. Eventually, she spoke.

"Thank you, David."

Then her hands were guiding his to the buttons on her blouse and it was all he could do to focus on the task in hand. He pushed the blouse to the floor, his eyes already straying to the shamrock brand on her breastbone. The make-up she used to cover it was melting under the heat of her skin and he wiped it away. The burn scar was pink, more pronounced he imagined because she was hot to the touch, and he leaned in to press a reverent kiss to it as though he could draw out the poison and the memory of Ian Doyle all in one go. Somewhere above his head Emily sighed and ran her fingers through his hair.

He moved on to the jagged monster that stretched across her abdomen. The surgeon, whoever he was, had done an excellent job in patching her up but the scar was always going to be there. It too was pink because of her warmth, and still a little rough to the touch, but it wasn't ugly. Not in the way Dave was expecting it to be anyway. He knelt down and ran his tongue along its length and felt her sharp intake of breath.

So he did it again. And again, and again, until her legs couldn't hold her anymore and she collapsed onto the bed behind her, pulling him down with her. He laid on top of her, a comforting weight that he balanced with his arms, and let her bring her hands up to ghost over his lips and goatee. For only the second time, she broke the silence.

"I think I might love you, David Rossi."

Swallowing the lump that had formed in his throat, he pressed his forehead into the crook of her neck and sighed thickly.

"I think I might love you too, Emily Prentiss."


End file.
